


An Unthinkable Present

by HumanPunchingBag (OneSpiffyBoy)



Category: Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 | Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World (Anime)
Genre: Being Reinhard is suffering, Being Subaru is suffering, Character Death, Character Study, Grief/Mourning, I'm an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27973959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneSpiffyBoy/pseuds/HumanPunchingBag
Summary: The words still echo in the silence of the war torn land."You are a hero, Reinhard. —A hero is all you can ever be."The young man — not even finished with his second decade — stares mournfully at the sky he parted, and the world he blew apart.
Relationships: Natsuki Subaru & Reinhard Van Astrea
Comments: 31
Kudos: 100





	An Unthinkable Present

**Author's Note:**

> This hurt me to write. Emotionally.

The sun shines through cleanly sliced clouds, breaking itself onto the carnage below. Nothing is left of the great Mathers mansion, only a dreadful gash remains in the burnt soil, the frozen world already evaporated with one swing of his sword.

There, Reinhard closes his eyes and he mourns.

He mourns the friend he had lost to such a terrible tragedy. The boy named Natsuki Subaru, who played equal parts hero and fool; who declared him a "monster" and a "friend" in the same breath; who stood strong against the Bowel Hunter, knowing he stood no chance. 

He mourns that though he is a hero, he can never save the ones that truly matter. 

He mourns Subaru, and he mourns that he truly couldn't sense when he was in danger.

He mourns that he stands here, unsullied in the wake of mass destruction that he himself wrought. That maps will be rewritten once again, due to his negligence.

He mourns that he is only a man and that he cannot turn back the hands of time.

He mourns that he is a hero, and that is all he will ever be.

\----

When cerulean irises dare to look upon their reality once again, nothing has changed. For all he is loved by the world, he remains shackled. And, for all he is blessed, he is cursed.

He turns on his heel, his oxfords meeting the paved road — not an ounce of snow left in sight — and he _falters._

He can't recall when he started running, though his feet now carry him towards the eerily familiar colors in the distance. The forefront of his mind screams for this to be a cruel joke, but Reinhard learned the Dragon holds no humor at an early age. 

He's closer now, one of his many infinite blessings carrying him as swiftly as the wind, and at the sight, the Sword Saint trembles.

Subaru kneels at the mouth of the mansion's gate, rigor mortis contorting his body into the shape that he died. His friend holds onto a maid, mangled and misshapen, though her face tells of nothing but utter bliss. (And how much he wants to know how she looks so peaceful in spite of a fate so utterly gruesome, he'll never voice.) Reinhard looks at his friend's head lying not even a meter from his corpse and dares to feel slightly vindicated in his slaying of the beast. Though, Subaru's wrists are bloodied from shackles of his own, stained through the fabric of his odd, ever present clothing. 

Reinhard desperately wants to know what happened, just as much as he desperately wants to forget. But, he knows that this image will be burned into his eyelids for years to come.

His traitorous mind whispers, _"Your blessings are just as dreadful a curse,"_ and his heart — just as traitorous — agrees.

He kneels, and with shaking hands, reaches towards the brunet. His dark eyes are unseeing and deflated in death. 

Reinhard's lip trembles.

The utter despair is palpable in his friend's last expression. _"What happened, Subaru?"_ His heart screams.

And the Sword Saint's gloves, white and pure, close his eyelids, once and for all. Though Reinhard knows that underneath his hands will always remain stained in red, and his vision blurs.

His mind is plastered with Subaru's back, behind the closed gate of Duchess Crusch's manor. Walking away due to Reinhard's own incompetence.

Of Julius, never being able to apologize for the events of the Royal Selection's Grand Announcement, though it tortures his soul so.

Of how, in just a few days time, everything went so drastically, unabashedly wrong.

And Reinhard cries for what he has lost; for what he can never regain again.

\----

When the other knights arrive to help with the relief. All their eyes linger on the legend in white, tears streaming down his face, kneeling by the body of the self-proclaimed knight. 

Their silence spoke louder than words ever could.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.  
> I'm fucking depressed about this death. I'm just fucking depressed in GENERAL. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. I'm just going to sit in this corner and think about what I've done.


End file.
